This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Localized bipolar electric field pulses have been observed by many satellite missions throughout Earth's plasma environment including the auroral ionosphere, regions of the magnetosphere (e.g., the cusp, the magnetosheath, and the magnetotail), and in the solar wind. The research effort proposed here will address the structure and evolution of ion holes,double layers, and ion acoustic solitons in plasma conditions relevant to the auroral upward current region. Using a multidimensional particle-in-cell code, The PI will address some long-standing questions regarding the stability of oblique double layers in a magnetic field in multiple phase space dimensions, including an investigation of how perpendicular ion heating affects the evolution of the double layer and whether a 2D double layer is quasi-stable. Finally, the evolution of ion holes and ion acoustic solitons will be studied in relation to the double layer evolution. The research opportunities presented in this proposal will be accessible to math and science undergraduate students at John Brown University (JBU). These opportunities will allow students to engage in world class research, attend national conferences and interact with researchers at national laboratories, larger research universities, and those in industry. Furthermore, this research provides a bridge between JBU, a liberal arts university devoted primarily to undergraduate education, and the University of Colorado, Boulder through the PIs collaborators. Finally, the PIC code that is developed as a results of this research will have a broader impact since the PI will use the code to solve problems related to basic electrodynamics and incorporate these results into some of the physics courses at JBU.
